Putin will be laughing all the way back home

Vladimir Putin will be laughing all the way back to the Kremlin
Opinion by Samuel Ramani •


“There’s no deal until there’s a deal” and “we didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.” Speaking at his press conference with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Donald Trump was probably trying to convey optimism about the trajectory of the negotiations to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.


Instead, his words encapsulated the shallowness of the first US-Russia presidential summit in four years.

The Alaska summit was a highly predictable failure. During the immediate build-up to the talks, Russian forces seized 10km of territory around Pokrovsk. Ukraine responded by firing drones on Russian oil giant Rosneft’s Syzran refinery in Samara. Russian state media outlets accused Ukraine of instigating provocations to derail the talks. Yuriy Shchygol, a Ukrainian Brigadier General, vowed to continue drone strikes until Russia ended the war.

As Russia retains offensive momentum, Putin had no incentive to end the war. The Alaska summit was instead a chance for him to showcase Russia’s great power status to his core supporters and partners outside the West, and to buy himself time. It sure lived up to its billing.

In a calculated olive branch to Trump, Putin repeated his narrative that the Ukraine war would not have started if he had still been president. Trump took the bait and responded in a way that gave Putin undue legitimacy. Trump expressed optimism about future economic opportunities, having earlier quite literally rolled out a red carpet to greet the Russian president. An International Criminal Court-indicted war criminal was being feted by a US president as almost a friend and ally.

Putin also seems to have convinced Trump that he is serious about peace. As such, the Alaska summit likely forestalls further secondary tariffs or the implementation of Congress’s bone-crushing sanctions package against Russia. Trump’s acceptance of a joint summit without preconditions gave the Russian strongman the off-ramp he desperately needed. And now the punishment Trump has promised will presumably be delayed yet again.


Putin also advanced his time-tested strategy of sharpening frictions between the US and Europe. Trump’s non-response to Putin’s insinuations about European obstructionism of the peace process played into his hands. In the days that follow, European leaders will likely remind Trump of Nato’s open-door policy and seek to persuade him that Putin, as the aggressor, is unlikely to be serious about a lasting peace. This messaging could rub Trump the wrong way and create deeper rifts within the Trans-Atlantic alliance.


In the weeks ahead, Putin will try to consolidate these wins while avoiding meaningful concessions. The frequency of Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff’s engagements with Russian officials and US secretary of state Marco Rubio’s calls with his counterpart Sergey Lavrov could increase. Playing on Trump’s desire to outflank Beijing’s rare earth dominance, Russia could use the carrot of its natural resources as a reason to keep talking.

As meetings in Alaska were underway, Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti published an article with the headline “negotiations took place: the result is in our favour, Kyiv is going to surrender.” A bit hyperbolic to be sure, but Putin was the summit’s undisputed winner.